Frank Deford: sports, wrestling, and patriotism in America

The House recently rejected the amendment, which sought to prevent spend 7 million dollars to advertise the car No 39 Ryan Newman army.Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR

Even the sports has received in the budget cutting, when the House of the amendment has been offered in the next day, prevent the army from 7 million dollars to sponsor NASCAR race car No 39. But even in the atmosphere of slash burn, but change. There are many congressmen, prepared with a lot of good old-fashioned gone, all-American stuff, but keep your hands from my NASCAR.

And destinations: what fun-especially for the whiz-bang Chevrolet No 39 with the U.S. Army's entire tourists whippin ' around the oval, Jimmie Johnson, chasin ' can really well for some young fans carried out. I know this: when you watch the games on TV, I see a lot of commercials for the army--and other services. You can go where the fish are biting and sports is one logical space where the army to get their message to the right of the cohort most young are encountered.

In addition, all sports, believing that the army is closest to the automotive industry. If you like cars, there are a lot of what the military people always call vee-HICK-zan ?tu with the monkeys in the army.

It is also true that in the US sports games associated with more military and mass displays of nationalism than other entertainment. I always thought, why is SOP-standard operating procedure---for the national anthem shall be carried out on the games, when nobody expected Spangled Banner played at the theatre or Opera, or a rock concert or at the beginning of the Academy Awards this Sunday.

Why is this purely sporting devotion?

And now, at the beginning of the great sporting events, it is also mandatory to have a flash overhead of military jets. Olympics sends to the doves; We will send up fighter aircraft.

In addition, some baseball teams now not only play the anthem but also use the God bless America during the seventh-inning stretch. Yankees once even physically attempted to stop the patron from going into the room's men at the Irving Berlin song began. Seriously.

Of course, the problem is that if you make only the anthem of the next part of the scenery, loses its meaning. If the Pee Wee Herman show on Broadway before a few months ago, he claims to have been a school class, and with the theatre and at pledge of allegiance increases. Everyone went around, laughing, and thought: it is now quite position towards our national anthem at sporting events. Maybe it is not a joke, but it is just a rote deposit. It would be better if they have been stored, the Star-Spangled Banner for special occasions--Championship.

And certainly, if the Chevrolet No 39 works as the recruitment business, taxpayers ante up, but, Hey, how about Congress, we reduced the financing for the fighter jets flying over stadiums?

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